A silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is subjected to an imagewise exposure and then to a development with an aromatic primary amine type color development agent to result in generating an oxidation product of the developing agent, which reacts with a dye-forming coupler (hereinafter referred to as a coupler) to thereby form a dye image. In the color photographic light-sensitive material, usually used as the coupler are a yellow dye-forming coupler, a cyan dye-forming coupler and a magenta dye-forming coupler in combination. The dyes formed by these couplers have undesired sub-absorptions in many cases, and in employing them for a multi-layer constitution silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, the color reproducibility thereof is inclined to be deteriorated. Accordingly, to overcome these problems there have so far been proposed couplers which form an image having less sub-absorption and techniques of combining such couplers.
With respect to a magenta coupler, it is well known that a dye formed by a pyrazoloazole type magenta coupler has less sub-absorption, particularly in 420 to 450 nm, than a dye formed by a 5-pyrazolone type magenta coupler and provides a sharp visible absorption spectrum.
However, an improvement only in a magenta dye would be insufficient to reproduce well all colors of a subject by combining a cyan dye, a magenta dye and a yellow dye.
It is disclosed in JP-A-63-231451 (the term "JP-A" as used herewith means an unexamined Japanese patent application) that a specific yellow coupler is combined with a pyrazoloazole magenta coupler to try to improve color reproducibility in all hues.
The yellow coupler employed in JP-A-63-231451 is disclosed in JP-A-63-123047 as a yellow coupler which provides a dye showing a sharp absorption spectrum and has an excellent color developability and less fog as well as less fluctuation in color developability by pH of a color developing solution. However, the effects are insufficient with the combination described in JP-A-63-231451 and insufficient in terms of reduction of a minimum image density (Dmin) where the yellow coupler described in JP-A-63-231451 is used.
Further, the conventional phenol type and naphthol type couplers have unfavorable sub-absorptions in the yellow region of 400 to 430 nm, and accordingly have the serious problem that the color reproducibility is markedly reduced.
There are proposed as a means for solving this problem, cyan couplers such as pyrazoloazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,183 and 2,4-diphenyimidazoles described in European Patent Publication 0249453A2. The dyes formed by these couplers have less unfavorable absorptions in a short wavelength region as compared with the dyes formed by the conventional cyan couplers and therefore are preferable in terms of color reproducibility. However, these couplers are not deemed to have enough color reproducibility and in addition, there still remain problems in actual use, such as a low coupling activity.
Further, pyrazoloimidazoles are proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,728,598. These couplers are improved in coupling activity, but are insufficient in terms of hue.
In recent years, further higher performances are requested to a color reproducibility and fastness of a dye image formed, and required from an overall point of view is a light-sensitive material capable of providing a dye image satisfying an excellent color reproducibility as a photographic image and having a reduced fog.